’Invent!  No; they only fuss them and spoil them, and make ridiculous names for them,’ said Fly.  These darling creatures are ever so much better.  Look at Primrose there.’

‘Yes,’ said Gillian, as she saw her little sister in quiet ecstasy over the sparkling bells of the daffodils; ’one would not like to live eight hundred years away from that experience.’

‘But mamma cares just as much still as Primrose does,’ said Mysie.  ‘We must get some for her own self as well as for the church.’

‘Mine are all for mamma,’ proclaimed Primrose; and just then there was a shout that a bird’s nest had been found—–­a ring-ousel’s nest on the banks.  Fly and her brother shared a collection of birds’ eggs, and were so excited about robbing the ousels of a single egg, that Gillian hoped that Fergus would not catch the infection and abandon minerals for eggs, which would be ever so much worse—–­only a degree better than butterflies, towards which Wilfred showed a certain proclivity.

‘I shall be thirteen before next holidays,’ he observed, after making a vain dash with his hat at a sulphur butterfly, looking like a primrose flying away.

’Mamma won’t allow any “killing collection” before thirteen years old,’ explained Mysie.

‘She says,’ explained Gillian, ’by that time one ought to be old enough to discriminate between the lawfulness of killing the creatures for the sake of studying their beauty and learning them, and the mere wanton amusement of hunting them down under the excuse of collecting.’

‘I say,’ exclaimed Valetta, who had been exploring above, ’here is such a funny old house.’

There was a rush in that direction, and at the other end of the wide home-field was perceived a picturesque gray stone house, with large mullioned windows, a dilapidated low stone wall, with what had once been a handsome gateway, overgrown with ivy, and within big double daffodils and white narcissus growing wild.

‘It’s like the halls of Ivor,’ said Mysie, awestruck by the loneliness; ‘no dog, nor horse, nor cow, not even a goose,’

‘And what a place to sketch!’ cried Miss Vincent.  ’Oh, Gillian, we must come here another day.’

‘Oh, may we gather the flowers?’ exclaimed the insatiable Primrose.

‘Those poetic narcissuses would be delicious for the choir screen,’ added Gillian.

‘Poetic narcissus—–­poetic grandmother,’ said Wilfred.  ’It’s old butter and eggs.’

‘I say!’ cried Mysie.  ’Look, Ivy—–­I know that pair of fighting lions—–­ain’t these some of your arms over the door?’

‘By which you mean a quartering of our shield,’ said Ivinghoe.  ’Of course it is the Clipp bearing.  Or, two lions azure, regardant combatant, their tails couped.’

‘Two blue Kilkenny cats, who have begun with each other’s tails,’ commented Jasper.

’Ivinghoe glared a little, but respected the sixth form, and Gillian added—–­